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Plumber Finds Secret Cash Stash In Joel Osteen’s Church  

   DailyWire.com
DALLAS, TX - AUGUST 30: Pastor Joel Osteen speaks during MegaFest at the American Airlines Center on August 30, 2013 in Dallas, Texas.
Cooper Neill/Getty Images

According to officials at Joel Osteen’s Houston megachurch, a plumber recently found envelopes full of cash and checks behind a toilet while he was doing repairs.

The man identified only as “Justin” called into country music station 100.3 The Bull Thursday to tell the strange story of making the discovery of the stash on November 10. “There was a loose toilet in the wall, and we removed the tile,” he said, according to NBC affiliate KPRC . “We went to go remove the toilet, and I moved some insulation away and about 500 envelopes fell out of the wall, and I was like ‘Oh wow!’” He concluded, “I went ahead and contacted the maintenance supervisor that was there, and I turned it all in.”

DJ for the show “Morning Bullpen” George Lindsey expressed amazement at the revelation. “It was just unbelievable!” he told the Houston-area news outlet. “The things he was telling us that they found in the walls. We were like, ‘What are you talking about?’ So, then he relayed to us that in 2014 there was a big story about money being stolen from Lakewood Church that they never recovered.”

The burglary in question occurred in 2014 when thieves made off with about of $600,000 from a church safe.

Lindsey said that just makes the case more intriguing.

“Don’t you want to know what happened, I mean they stole the money, but they didn’t get it out of the wall,” the morning host exclaimed. “Did they have an accident, you know what I mean? It’s like, why did they never go back? If it’s that money, why did they never go back?”

Lakewood Church released a statement that confirmed the plumber’s account of finding an undisclosed amount of cash and checks while doing repairs. The church said they notified the Houston Police Department, and are currently assisting with the investigation:

Recently, while repair work was being done at Lakewood Church, an undisclosed amount of cash and checks were found Lakewood immediately notified the Houston Police Department and is assisting them with their investigation. Lakewood has no further comment at this time.

The non-denominational Lakewood claims to have the biggest Christian congregation in the world, with an average weekly attendance of 43,000. Osteen is often criticized by other Christian leaders for teaching a “prosperity gospel” — that is, if you donate money to his church in a show of faith, God will, in turn, bless you financially. He rose to fame with best-selling books that teach, contrary to the Bible, that God desires to give people their “best life now,” writing in 2005, “God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money, to fulfill the destiny He has laid out for us.”

As The Daily Wire previously reported, in 2017, Lakewood initially declined to open its doors as a haven to Hurricane Harvey victims, though it relented after an outpouring of public criticism.

 

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